35 SEO Interview Questions (Top Answers from the Experts)

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SEO stands for “search engine optimization.” It covers everything you do to increase the likelihood of a search engine ranking a website or webpage. Ideally, you want them to appear in the most prominent SERP positions for relevant user queries.

Specific areas of SEO include technical, content, and link building. Through technical SEO, you can improve your website so it’s easier for search engines to find, understand, and index. Content is what you feed to the search engine.

For example, you might create a blog post that helps solve a common customer query.

Link building is the process of earning a link from another website. High-authority links signal to Google that your website is trustworthy and helpful, which helps increase its authority.

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I run a personal website called IntelliHome, which I’ve been using to learn SEO. When I started the site, I didn’t understand page speed, why it mattered, or how to optimize a site to load quickly. After researching, I realized that page speed matters because it’s a ranking factor. A slow-loading site or page can also make users leave and find an alternative.

One issue I had, in particular, was having a lot of images on my site that I hadn’t compressed. As a result, the site loaded very slowly. To fix this, I used TinyPNG to reduce the file size of my images. Solving the issue took time and patience, but my site is now much healthier. I’ll also never make the same mistake again because I know how painful it can be to fix.

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I like to learn by doing. When I started my site, I didn’t understand keyword research. I’d write random posts about topics I assumed my audience wanted to read about. But the blog posts never brought much traffic to my site.

So, I read a blog post that taught me how to find the right keywords for my site.

After that, I started using a free SEO tool to find long-tail, low-competition keywords. In a month, I started to see some movement in traffic to my blog.

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By working on my personal website, I realized that I love keyword research and content ideation.

I’d love the opportunity to work on these tasks in a professional setting.

I’d also love the chance to get hands-on experience in executing SEO campaigns and helping other people improve rankings and grow their sites.

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On-page SEO is anything you do to optimize your website or webpages for search. This could include creating title tags and meta descriptions, improving page structure through headers and schema, and more.

Off-page SEO is any task you perform outside of the website related to improving a website’s search performance. Examples include link building through digital PR or digital guest posting, which can improve your website’s authority.

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SEO matters to any business because it can make their website more visible in search. Beyond raising brand awareness in the SERPs, SEO can also help a business attract the right customers to their website.

Having the right customers land on a website makes them more likely to convert. Conversions could include inquiring about a service, signing up for a demo, purchasing a product, or joining an email list. Directing relevant traffic that’s more likely to convert to a website can increase a business’s revenue.

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Part of effective collaboration means working on interpersonal relationships. One of my first priorities is to get to know the development team. So, when I joined my last company, I engaged with the dev team through the company Slack.

When it comes to working with developers to implement SEO recommendations, I like to set clear expectations. This means setting up a task in a project management tool with clear instructions, the scope of the task, and an ideal deadline. I’ll also add any relevant documentation. Basically, anything that adds more context to the task.

I also always make myself available for questions via instant message, email, and calls. And I let the team know that the deadline is negotiable.

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In my current role, I’m agency side. On any given day, I could be developing a keyword research strategy for a new client or creating content briefs for writers.

I could also be running SEO content audits for client websites. But one thing I’m not currently doing is technical SEO. I would really love to develop that skill, and it’s part of what interests me about this role.

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The only way to truly understand an update or the future of SEO is through a test website. That’s because what Google says and what it actually does can differ.

Take Google’s spam update as an example. Initially, the update targeted purely AI-driven sites. But some AI sites slipped through the net and continued to rank. Then, some people using AI content with human editing did well during the update.

Still, my gut says that SEO should always focus on providing a great user experience and building authentic audience relationships. Those fundamentals are unlikely to change. They also build trust, which plays a big part in whether your target audience converts or not.

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I like to read trusted publications like Search Engine Land, Backlinko, Semrush, and Google to keep up with algorithm updates. SEO conferences and webinars are great, too. That said, if a trend interests me, I like to test it on my personal site first to see if it’s worth it.

I’m also part of a few SEO Slack communities, such as Traffic Think Tank and MostlyMarketing. They’re full of curious SEOs who are actually testing concepts. Plus, whenever something new happens in SEO, be that a trend or update, someone usually posts about it in one of those communities, helping me stay up to date.

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Last year, I was the lead SEO on a campaign for an editorial publication specializing in niche music. The publication wanted to increase relevant traffic, clicks, and impressions.

The website already had a high volume of content published in the niche and had a lot of topical authority. Because of this, I wanted to focus on keeping up with publishing volume while creating content with organic traffic in mind. The aim was to publish four SEO-driven pieces a month.

To do this, I wanted to start building relevant content clusters. I noticed the site was already ranking well for a few articles about video game music, which also drove a lot of traffic to the site. So, I started building out a content cluster about video game music.

After developing a keyword strategy based on content clusters, I started creating content briefs for the publication’s writers. I also introduced ‘Article’ schema and created an internal linking strategy to encourage pillar pages to start ranking.

After six months, the publication experienced a 38% increase in clicks and a 75% increase in impressions. It also had over 350 keywords ranking in positions one to 10 with the majority of them ranking top three in the SERPs.

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I’d start by reviewing the work completed to date, the client’s goals, and the current strategy’s performance. I’d do this to identify any data-driven gaps or opportunities in our current plan.

This might mean examining resource capacity and utilization rates, for example. This data can help me see how the team typically uses its time and whether we can find efficiencies in the coming months. More importantly, I’d want to balance the team’s workload so no one is overloaded.

Afterward, I’d meet with the client to discuss these findings and manage their expectations. During the conversation, I’d explain the work done, its impact, and the realistic timelines for seeing results.

If the client requires additional work, we can explore flexible options, such as adjusting the scope of future work, offering a one-time additional service at a discounted rate, or discussing the possibility of increasing their retainer hours.

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How I measure the commercial impact of my SEO efforts depends on the specific sales funnel I’m dealing with. That said, a common way I track SEO efforts is through the performance of pages built specifically for SEO. I focus on SEO-driven pages that don’t pull in many branded searches.

To do this, I use Google Analytics’ landing page report to track revenue or conversions.

Another way I measure commercial impact is by tracking sales or conversions from users who also viewed SEO-driven content. For example, that could be a landing page or a blog post created based on my recommendation. For this, I use GA4’s segment overlap. I’ll also track organic revenue sitewide.

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When delegating to my direct reports, I first review the task to ensure I’m assigning it to the person with the most appropriate skill set.

Once I’ve identified who to delegate the task to, I check their availability. If the task is urgent and they’re busy, I will collaborate with them to reallocate or reprioritize their workload to free them up.

Then, I’ll brief them so they have clear expectations of the task. Once I assign the task, I’ll let them know they can ask me any questions. I’ll also set a reasonable deadline that balances the urgency and complexity of the task.

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I love SEO, but it’s just one part of marketing. So, I like working with other marketing teams because this helps with SEO efforts. This collaboration might involve contacting the PPC team to see if I can use their data to help my keyword research.

In the past, this has helped me find new opportunities for long-tail keywords that I might not have found otherwise.

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How I’d repurpose a blog post via a different marketing channel depends on the context of the piece and the specific business. Repurposing could be as simple as using a meta description as a post on X. Or it could be a little more complex. Like engaging a designer to help me repurpose a B2B blog post into a LinkedIn carousel or YouTube video.

As the content is shared across various platforms, it can attract backlinks from different sources, boosting its authority and rankings.

You can also target different keywords and phrases with different content formats. For example, a video might rank for video-specific keywords on YouTube, while the original blog post targets traditional search queries.

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At the ToFu or ‘Awareness’ stage, people are just becoming aware of the problem. To serve the search intent, I’d create educational blog posts that build trust.

At the MoFu or ‘Interest’ stage, a prospect wants a solution but is weighing options. I’d aim to produce helpful comparison guides to serve the search intent.

At the BoFu or ‘Action’ stage, a prospect wants to purchase a solution. To serve this search intent, I’d aim to produce product or sales pages.

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In my last three local SEO campaigns, more of my clients’ leads came through Google Maps than their websites. One of those clients gained 65% of leads via their GBP versus 35% through their website.

Optimizing the company’s Google Maps listing was part of that campaign’s success. For example, I covered the basics, like making sure the listing information was up to date and adding professional photos. But I also published posts frequently and focused on earning legitimate Google reviews to build trust.

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The techniques I deploy to earn legitimate reviews really depend on each client’s needs and specific audience. That said, we had one client in a very competitive market with customers who needed to visit a physical storefront. That meant maps, maps, maps. So, we had the store employees print QR codes that customers would use to quickly leave reviews from the premises.

I have also worked closely with my client’s social media teams in the past to earn reviews. For example, whenever a customer left positive comments on a company Facebook page, I encouraged the social team to ask them for a Google review.

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First, I use a keyword research tool that allows me to specify the geographic area I’m targeting. This way, I can gauge the keyword difficulty and monthly search volume based on the geographic area rather than nationwide data.

I also look for an SEO tool that can generate SERPs in my employer’s or client’s market. I’ll use a virtual private network (or VPN) if this isn’t possible.

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I was working at an agency where we were rolling out a lot of updates to a website that included every arm of the agency. After some QA, I created a ticket to ensure the canonicals were set up. In my ticket, I included an example of the code to put in for the canonicals. But the dev pushed the canonical value as the example I had put in—meaning it was the same for every single page.

The push was live for about a week—and it was one of the most stressful weeks of my entire career. It involved me negotiating with multiple teams all the way up the chain. I finally convinced a PM to move their schedule around so we could update it correctly and push a fix.

I learned that as many times as I QA something, something else can always go wrong. And when providing examples, a chat with the person implementing it is a great additional step to take.

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One concerns getting a page out of the index, and the other concerns the crawler not being allowed to access the page.

Noindex is a directive you give to a page to remove it or prevent it from being indexed. Robots disallow is a line of code in the text that prevents crawlers (when specified) from accessing a certain page. This stops them from seeing (no index) directives.

I have a staging website that I forgot to lock off from Google. As a result, it got indexed. To get it out of the index, I placed a noindex directive on the page, so the next time Google checks the page, it sees the directive and removes it from the index.

But if I just disallowed the crawler from accessing that page, the crawler won’t see the noindex directive. As a result, it won’t know to remove the page from the index, and the problem remains.

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Page speed is the amount of time it takes for a webpage to load. It’s important because it’s one of the few ranking factors confirmed by Google. Aside from that, a slow-loading page negatively impacts user experience. A poor user experience may discourage people from returning to your site.

In the past, I’ve improved page speed by reducing image sizes, optimizing code, and removing render-blocking JavaScript.

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Crawling is the process where automated programs (also known as bots, crawlers, or spiders) discover and scan webpages, collect a copy of each page, and identify new links to be crawled.

Crawling is crucial for Google to find new or updated content and is one reason why internal linking is vital for SEO.

Once a page has been crawled, it’s queued for rendering. This involves taking the HTML and CSS and executing the JavaScript to “render” the page as it would appear in a browser. This allows bots to parse all the information on the page. If a page can’t be rendered properly, important content or links might not be visible to bots.

After a page has been crawled and rendered, search engines determine whether to add it to their index (except in some edge cases). The index lists all the pages and other content that the search engine knows about. A page can only be shown in search results if it’s indexed. This is why you need to ensure only the right pages are being indexed.

The final process is where search engines sort through the content within the index to return the most useful results to users. This process is governed by algorithms and is influenced by numerous ranking factors and signals, including the words used in the query, relevance, and quality of the content, location, and external links to the page.

It’s essential to understand, test, and apply these criteria to improve rankings.

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I’d start by examining the quality of the backlink using an SEO tool. I look at the Domain Authority or Authority Score of the referral site and the relevancy of the linking page’s content to our target page.

High-authority, relevant sites typically provide more SEO value.

I’d also monitor the impact of the backlink on the target page’s rankings and traffic. I use Google Search Console and Google Analytics to track any changes in keyword rankings, organic traffic, and conversions after acquiring the backlink.

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When determining a website’s health without an SEO tool, I’d want to see how fast the page loads as a priority. So, if I click on a page and images or text loads slowly, that’s not a great sign of a healthy site.

I’d also look to see if there were a lot of ads throughout the website. Too many site ads can make it seem spammy, low-quality, and untrustworthy.

Another thing I’d want to check is the on-page links to see if any are broken.

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It’s not an exact science, but you can measure a website’s authority in several ways. One way is to use third-party tools that provide a health score, like Semrush’s Authority Score or Moz’s Domain Authority checker. I use the Domain Overview tool in Semrush to measure a website’s authority.

The AS metric ranks a website’s authority from one to 100. A higher score indicates a higher authority website.

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Before pitching to publishers or journalists, I ensure what I’m suggesting adds value to their page or website. I also want to make sure their site is relevant to the site I’m building links to.

One of my priorities is to customize my outreach message to each prospect so my pitch resonates with them. Part of that means making sure the prospect can clearly see the value I will bring to their specific audience.

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I like to place target keywords in high-visibility places that help Google understand a page’s topic. So, I will include the target keyword in the H1, first paragraph, and subheaders (H2 through H6). This helps Google and readers see at a glance if the page matches their search intent.

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I would say a click-worthy meta description doesn’t just consider Google but the reader, too. So, I look for elements like whether a publisher has included the target keyword or whether the most important part of the text is visible on mobile.

From the reader’s perspective, we should write content in the active voice because it’s more engaging. There should also be some conversion copywriting. For example, a writer might use voice of customer to target pain points. Finally, there should be a clear call to action that directs someone to click the page.

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When briefing writers or writing content myself, I always keep Google’s HCU guidelines top of mind. I want to make sure people who read the content leave feeling like they’ve learned enough to achieve their goals, for example.

I also don’t want readers to leave the site to find better information from another source. With that in mind, I like to dive into the SERPs during research—not to copy competitors, but to find gaps. A gap I’d want to bridge is when a site provides a definition, but I have to look at another website to understand part of it. I’d make sure my content didn’t have that gap.

Adding relevant visual content like images and videos is another way to create more helpful content. I’m always surprised by how many organic competitors don’t do that.

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To improve existing content with on-page SEO edits, I’ll head to Google Analytics or Google Search Console. If there are content pieces with high impressions but low clicks, I’ll prioritize them for on-page edits.

When I’ve organized my list of on-page content edits, I’ll return to Search Console to identify keyword opportunities. I’ll look at the queries people use that we aren’t already targeting.

If these make sense in terms of search intent and are logical in the context of the page, I’ll add them to the existing content. For example, I might add them to existing headings or create new sections.

I’ll also use this data to inform new content opportunities, keeping on-page SEO considerations top of mind. If any queries from GSC don’t fit the page’s search intent or could use an entire article to match search intent, I’ll pitch new content pieces.

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Web content typically leans more toward the educational side. It consists of how-to blogs, listicles, or guides. Meanwhile, web copy covers more of the sales side, such as homepage copy, product collections, or sales landing pages.

That said, just because I’m writing content doesn’t mean I won’t add an element of sales. And just because I’m writing sales copy doesn’t mean I won’t educate my reader. Because of that, I will always have both styles or techniques in mind when writing content or copy.

This could mean adding conversion copywriting techniques to a long-form blog post to encourage demo sign-ups. Or getting into the details of how a concept works to educate and build trust via a sales landing page.

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Optimizing content and nailing search intent go hand in hand. To start, I use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to research keywords, focusing on their intent—whether it’s informational, commercial, navigational, or transactional. I also look at search volume and difficulty.

Next, I examine the top-ranking content for my target keyword to understand what Google considers relevant, whether it’s a how-to, product page, or comparison guide.

Based on the intent, I structure my content to match. For example, for an article on the best noise-canceling headphones, I would do a comparison guide to match search intent. I’d include top products, detailed reviews, and pricing and feature comparisons with clear headings and images.

As I’m writing, I’d optimize the content with the target keyword and any secondary terms. I’d also add relevant internal links, and optimize title tags, meta descriptions, and image alt tags.

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I like to start by doing audience research. Of course, speaking to an audience directly is better, but sometimes that isn’t doable. In this case, I might search relevant LinkedIn or Facebook groups and existing customer reviews or visit forums like Reddit for insights.

I also like checking in with customer support to learn about common queries or support tickets.

I’ll then use that data to find keywords that match the queries and search intent. I love starting keyword research like this because it opens up content ideas I never would’ve thought of. Even better still, the keywords link to queries that real people are actually searching for.